


skin so cold it burns; breathes fire now and then

by MargaretKire



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Porn with Feelings, dance club, dragon tattoo, pinning, touch starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 00:16:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11024574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MargaretKire/pseuds/MargaretKire
Summary: Eames never knew Arthur had a tattoo... or that he would see him, dancing and shirtless, in a gay club the night before a heist.





	skin so cold it burns; breathes fire now and then

The dragon twined around Arthur as he danced, his spine straight and his head held high, his body shirtless and gleaming. The scales of the beast hugged his ribs, it’s claws gripping possessively into his flesh, as hungry as Arthur himself looked in that moment, the two of them combined into a beautiful, deadly creature.

The ink was asymmetrical- the head of the beast resting under Arthur’s right collarbone, the dragon turned just enough to avoid eye contact with onlookers. Rather than throw the man off-balance, the tattoo served to heighten his graceful lines. The rich colors of the dragon made him luminescent in the darkness of the club, sweat rolling down his flexing back.

The dragon didn’t detract from Arthur himself, Eames mused, watching him from the level above, where he leaned against the railing, enthralled. It should have. A tattoo that large and aggressive should have been the only thing an onlooker noticed about the dark-haired man. Instead, the ink had the opposite effect. There was something so revealing about the serpent-like creature grasping onto Arthur, ravenous and deadly, highlighting both his vulnerability and strength. Looking at Arthur now, Eames realized, like a blow to the face, that he didn’t know _this_ man, _this_ Arthur, at all.

Eames hadn’t believed that the dancing figure below him was Arthur when he had first laid eyes on him. He knew Arthur was in the city, of course, staying at the same nearby hotel. They were working a dream extraction job together on the west side of the city, slightly north of their current location. In fact, the job was scheduled for tomorrow evening and here was their point man - the same man that had been pushing them without mercy to nail down the tiniest details of the plan - shirtless and writhing in a pit of horny men.

It was obvious why Eames was here. No one on the team would so much as bat an eye at the forger hanging out at a deliriously-loud gay club in one of the largest cities on earth right before a major heist. But this was _Arthur_ below him in the wriggling mob; the man Eames secretly thought of as _his_ Arthur, deep in the recesses of his own mind, the possessive feelings buried and denied for years. Yet, for all his low-key pining, he had never even guessed that Arthur had a tattoo, let alone one that claimed his entire torso. 

By all the laws of human attraction, Arthur should have had every man in the club on him, from the tiniest twink to the largest bear. Yet, no one was so much as touching him. Eyes were on him, Eames noticed as he swept his gaze over the thick ring of men all around Arthur, watching him greedily, but no one was touching.

Eames thought back to his initial reaction, nearly an hour ago, when he had first caught sight of Arthur below. In the space of a heartbeat before he recognized him, he’d had one thought above all others: _Dangerous._ The man with the dragon wrapped around his slim frame was dangerous as fuck. 

He had forgotten how lethal Arthur was, or rather, not forgotten so much as taken it as a given, something that was just Arthur. The same Arthur that Eames teased mercilessly, flirted with as subtly as Eames’ larger-than-life persona allowed, which was not all that subtle, really. This was the Arthur whom Eames thrilled to find connected to the PASIV, asleep and vulnerable in dream, the only time Arthur looked even partially relaxed. How many times had Eames secretly studied that face, both boyish and sharp, a contrast of soft and hard, wishing he had the courage to drop the act and actually pursue Arthur in earnest.

In all that time, Eames never once knew about the dragon.

Slowly, he made his way down to the dance floor. A few hands reached out to trail along his shoulders and arms as he went, and normally he would have turned towards those interested men with a cocky smile and taken a good look at them, sized them up. Tonight, he turned away from the caresses and the smiles sent his way, their gentle invitations ignored. 

As he reached the crush of dancers around Arthur, Eames could feel the tension in the air. Several pairs of eyes were trained on the man whose skin was taken up almost entirely by the entwining serpent, their looks ranging from wistfully interested to full-on lecherous. Yet no one touched him. 

Eames looked at Arthur. Really looked at him. The dragon was not some showy artifice that Arthur had used to try and make himself intimidating or edgy. The tattoo didn’t _make_ Arthur anything, didn’t add to him. It revealed him. It laid him bare and vulnerable in a way that these men, who didn’t know anything about the tight control Arthur had over himself at all times, could never comprehend. To them, Arthur looked like a viper, beautiful and sleek, deadly and quick. But to Eames…

To Eames…

He moved towards Arthur slowly, the lithe man failing to notice him as, by now, he’d accepted that no one was going to touch him. He was essentially alone - always alone - closing his eyes against the tide of humanity that refused to see him for what he was.

His eyes opened sharply on a gasp as Eames laid gentle hands at his waist, leaning into Arthur enough that the smaller man could feel Eames’ heat along his back, but not so close as to assume possession of him. 

There was a moment of tension, of indecision, Arthur never turning his head to see who had finally decided to touch him. Eames stroked slow thumbs over Arthur’s flanks, petting the inked scales, soothing the beast that entwined him. Arthur began to relax back into him, slowly at first, and then all at once, his skin making contact with the soft cotton of Eames’ shirt. Arthur murmured something then that sounded like a name, sounded like _Eames,_ and Eames held the slender body closer, his thick arms wrapping around Arthur’s chest, mimicking the coils of the dragon. 

Arthur craned his neck to the side, looking back at him over his shoulder. And then he laughed. The sound was mostly lost to the din of the club, but the sight was imprinted on Eames’ mind, the bright spark of what was the essential part of Arthur blindingly bright, touching off the long-smoldering wick of desire in Eames. 

Arthur’s laughter turned into a moan as Eames pressed his face to Arthur’s glistening neck, lapping up the stinging salt on his skin, holding him tight in the vise of his arms. The dragon on Arthur’s skin writhed in pleasure, slipping minutely in Eames’ grasp, dragging against the spots where there was cloth, sliding along the bits that were skin on skin. 

The words Eames would have thought he’d say in a situation like this, _Fancy meeting you here, Darling,_ or some such pretentious rot, never even entered his mind. Instead it was, “Arthur, I didn’t know. Arthur. _Arthur,"_  right into his ear. 

The man with the tattoo, this man that Eames had wanted for years but had never clearly seen, canted his hips and ground back into Eames' erection, his head falling back onto Eames shoulder and his eyes rolling as they shut tight on a moan. This man. This man was going to be Eames’ undoing. 

He clung to him, hand splayed over Arthur’s chest on the left side in counterpoint to the dragon’s head on the right, his other hand wrapped around his hip, guiding his undulating body against his throbbing cock. Eames lost track of how long they stayed like that, melded together so tightly that their sweat soaked through Eames’ shirt, his front one burning line from Arthur’s rolling hips to where his head was pressed into the side of Eames’ throat. 

Eames was in no danger of coming; he was too overwhelmed to come. It was everything at once: the music, the heat, the tight press of the dragon’s curling body into his chest, Arthur’s moans, barely audible through the bass of the dance track raging from the speakers. 

When he started tugging at him, guiding Arthur to the exit, he went without protest, moving away from Eames’ eager body just enough so that they could walk without tripping over one another. Eames’ hand stroked the dragon’s neck where it strained over Arthur’s shoulder, his fingers slipping along the skin that glistened like scales in the streetlights. He longed to strip off his own damp shirt and cover Arthur with it, to save the dragon for himself, greedy already over what it revealed about his teammate, _his Arthur._  

Eames somehow managed to get them back to the hotel without giving into his obsessive need to cover Arthur completely with his own body, to protect him even though he needed no protector. Not Arthur, who was more capable than anyone else on the team and ten times as deadly. Arthur didn’t need a shield. His strength was in his rawness, his hidden vulnerability, sharpened and honed to an inferno as hot and bright as dragon fire. 

If anyone needed armor, needed protection, it was Eames. He had used a facsimile of an easygoing, extraverted nature that hid his true self, his core being, from the rest of the world. Let people think that the slicked-back hair, the obnoxious shirts, the toothpick clenched between his teeth was the real man. It was easier that way, to be misjudged intentionally, on his own terms. So much better than opening up and exposing the real heart of himself, that frightened and backwards inner child, so empathetic to the feelings and actions of others that he himself felt lost in the riptide of other people’s personas. He was the best forger in the world for a reason. He got lost in other people, their voices, their gestures, likes and dislikes, loves and fears. He was awash with the ghosts of others, his feet scraping for the solid ground below, never finding purchase. 

Until this. Until Arthur. 

He followed Arthur to his room, preferring to see the dragon’s lair, knowing that his own room was littered with the artifice of his working persona: vague and tacky and unreal. Arthur’s room, though not really his home, was at least genuine. It would give away bits of the man unknowingly, accidentally, and Eames would slurp it up, treasure the bits of reality, of authenticity. 

The door clicked shut behind them and Eames had just a moment to take in the one queen-sized bed, made up freshly by room service, Arthur’s polished shoes that he wore with his suits to work lined up neatly next to the wardrobe. Then Arthur stripped the drenched shirt off over Eames’ head, blinding him momentarily. Arthur was humming appreciation for what he’d just uncovered before he’d even cast the garment to the floor, his hands roaming over slick muscle as soon as they were free. 

The room’s air conditioning brought sweet relief from the heat of the club and the balmy city air outside, their nipples pebbling in the artificial atmosphere. Eames stared at Arthur’s chest, transfixed by the dragon, its mood having changed with the lighting, now quiet and waiting. It was even more alarming in this calm setting than it had been at the club, where the dragon had been intimidating enough to scare off a crowd of interested men. It may have looked dangerous then. It was hypnotizing now. 

A shiver of excitement raced down Eames’ spine as he reached out to stroke Arthur’s flanks, his rough hands traveling up the smooth art of his ribs. His thumbs paused next to Arthur’s nipples, rubbing the soft skin next to them, observing the effect it was having on Arthur’s slender frame. 

His left nipple was covered in ink, the deep color and dark shadow of the dragon engulfing the tender flesh. The other nipple was virginal, untouched by the serpent. Eames took both in his fingers, rolling them as Arthur arched back, pressing into his hands, moaning. 

Then he kissed him. It was like kissing flame. Eames was consumed by the inferno, his artifice stripped away, leaving only the burning need to consume and be consumed in its wake. 

“Arthur,” Eames murmured into their kiss. His tone of voice, his real voice, revealed too much, revealed himself. Arthur looked into his eyes for a long, searching moment. Something shifted between them, falling into place, locking down tight. 

“Eames,” Arthur breathed, and twined around him in a tight embrace. 

Arthur took Eames first, which was fitting somehow, Eames would muse later. At the time, though, it was as confusing as it was blindingly euphoric. Arthur moving inside him, mounting him from behind as the slighter man lay plastered to his back, the dragon wrapped tightly around its prey, moving in long sinuous thrusts, claiming. Eames had his head in his arms, his knees drawn up under his body, sobbing, boneless, as Arthur took him apart. He was floating somewhere inside himself, lost and scrabbling at the walls of his own flesh for purchase against the onslaught, whimpering into the cave between his chest and the mattress. 

When Arthur’s hand wrapped around his cock, hot and weeping, straining against nothing for what had felt like hours, Eames went still, silent for one moment that stretched and stretched, until he came with a guttural cry. He could feel it traveling his length, scouring him out from the inside. He pulsed into the sheets, unheeding of the tears that were falling in heavy drops along with saliva from his open mouth, streaking his forearms as the last bit of his armor fell away, taking the dragon’s brand deep inside his body. 

Later, when Eames took Arthur, it was gentle, reverent. He lay the tattooed man on his back and worshiped his inked skin, thinking of the small wells of liquid pigment that swirled just below the flesh as his lips trailed over the lines of the dragon’s body. He moved slowly, working in and out of Arthur’s tight clutch until their orgasms crested, one after the other, Eames making his own, softer, claim inside Arthur. 

In the morning, before they had to get ready for the job, Arthur traced over Eames assorted tattoos, much smaller and plainer in comparison to the dragon. He let out a small huff as he touched the coat of arms on Eames’ right pectoral muscle. The way he was lying, spread over Eames’ broad body, the dragon’s head was turned toward the shield-shaped tattoo on Eames’ chest, looking as though it was considering swallowing the emblem down or setting it alight with its fiery breath. 

Arthur, _this_ Arthur, looked at him mischievously. The other Arthur, the one whose tattoo was covered completely by his dark suits, would have mocked or ignored the symbol. But this man was alert and interested, all his attention focused on the near-helpless creature that lay pinned beneath him, gazing up with eyes that exposed a churning well of emotion. 

“You are a knight,” Arthur purred, as Eames gasped and squirmed underneath the body that was beginning to roll in a precise undulation, rasping their groins together in wave after wave of his inked flesh. “Don’t knights usually slay dragons?” he asked with a dangerous smile. 

“I think, if the legends were honest,” he gasped, rolling up into the body above, “they would report more knights being taken down by dragons than the other way around. _Oh Jesus,”_ he exclaimed, head falling back as Arthur simultaneously laved at his throat with his tongue and slipped two fingers down between their bodies to circle Eames’ entrance. 

“There may be some truth in that,” Arthur conceded, rolling his erection alongside Eames’, no clothing in the way as they had never bothered getting dressed again the night before. “But isn’t it maidens that dragons are fond of keeping for themselves?” 

“Arthur,” Eames said, trying to hold it together and give him the most serious look he could muster, despite being taken apart piece by piece on his fingers, “you can dress me in a fucking ball gown for all I care, just keep me.” 

Arthur paused at that and Eames went still, worried he had said too much. Maybe this mix of his real self with his persona - the best he could manage right now with so little practice of exposing his core to anyone else, even himself - was too much, too soon. Maybe he would snuff out this small thing that had been building slowly between them over the years, building, finally, to the point that it had caught light and began to burn. He gazed up at Arthur, not with his usual smugness, but with alarm, anxious that his clumsy attempt at levity had fallen flat. Maybe he had killed this thing already and would have to watch it twitching into ruin around him, pulling back on his armor, his loud persona, so that he could do this job and flee. 

The dragon’s head loomed up as Arthur put his weight on his arms, showing bright and fierce as he shifted, the dragon’s eyes just missing Eames, skipping away from him toward an unseen world. He glanced up at Arthur, who, in contrast to the dragon, was focused on him with all his being. 

“I would like to,” Arthur said softly. He searched Eames face. “Can I? Keep you, I mean.” he whispered. “Even if it’s just for now. Even if you need to leave later. But for a little bit longer…” 

Eames pulled Arthur to him, their skin and symbols melding together under the pressure of their embrace. “As long as you want, Pet.” His legs fell open in clear invitation and the dragon was on him in an instant, moaning as he breached him, wet and open from the night before, and began the manic rutting that Eames was quickly becoming addicted to. 

“After tonight,” Arthur panted, “after the job… let’s go somewhere… just you and me.” He shuddered and slipped his deceptively strong arms under Eames’s knees, grasping his legs with his bent elbows, leaning forward to fold Eames up, tilting him into a more vulnerable position so that he could drive into his sweet spot over and over. “I… don’t care… where we go,” Arthur rasped, his breath coming fast as he strained forward, desperate to stay inside yet equally as anxious to move and give them both the friction they needed for their release. 

“Anywhere you want, Arthur,” Eames managed, the words leaving his mouth mashed together in a rush. 

“I’ll make a plan,” Arthur huffed, his neck tilting back as his spine bowed under the heat of his building orgasm. “We’ll leave… right after the job. Go somewhere… nice…” his voice trailed off into a rough groan, his eyes clamping shut and his head falling forward, hanging just over Eames’ face. 

“Yes, _I want to,”_ Eames said, not even sure what he was begging for, but knowing in his heart that he was begging. 

Arthur opened his eyes, his gaze burning as he managed one lopsided grin before his mouth opened on a silent scream as he came, his hand over the shield on Eames breast. Eames gazed up at him, reaching to hold back the tumble of dark hair falling into Arthur’s face, watching the ecstasy turn to exhaustion as he shuddered and stilled. 

He pulled Arthur to himself, feeling the inked skin of Arthur’s belly slither over his still-erect cock, and just reveled in the heat and weight of him. 

“I know you’ll pick somewhere nice, Arthur,” he purred, as the other man reached between them and got a hand around him, slowly jacking him off. “Even if you don’t, I’d follow you.” 

“Cheesy,” Arthur huffed, his hand tugging quicker. 

“Maybe, but I mean it,” Eames groaned. “You know... _have_ known that, right?” 

There was a pause, with just the slick sound of Arthur’s hand working him over and their breathing filling the room. 

“Yeah,” Arthur said, softly against Eames’ neck. “Yeah, I know.” 

And with that, Eames arched and came.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you are wondering how I envisioned Arthur's tattoo, please take a look at my [inspiration Pinterest board](https://www.pinterest.com/mothdustmouth/skin-so-cold-it-burns-breathes-fire-now-and-then/).
> 
> My [Tumblr](https://mothdustmouth.tumblr.com/).


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